


Maybe it was a bad idea to begin with?

by CmdrLola



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23239894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmdrLola/pseuds/CmdrLola
Summary: This is the story of Simona Reynolds, who served aboard the Normandy as a Operations Chief. While Shepard saved the Citadel, she made sure the Crew was well supplied. Now, 2 years later, Sim has joined Cerberus for various reasons - non of them being working with Shepard again. I mean how? The Normandy was blown to pieces and the Commander declared dead?! Okay, now Sim, deep breaths! Inhale - exhale - no don't scream ...





	1. New Beginnings, I guess

**Sim**

“I’ve been there, you know? On the Normandy, right in the middle of it. When Shepard hunted down Saren and his Geth, when he found out about the Reapers. And then he died. I wasn’t there for that part though, wish I would’ve been. Sometimes, I still think about it. Silly little thoughts about how I would’ve saved him and how he would’ve finally seen me and we would now be living happily in that house on Intai’sei with our two beautiful kids, Luca and Mina. You see, I had a major crush on the Commander from the moment I laid my eyes on him. So, my thoughts usually end up in these unrealistic daydreams about our life together. Not that those dreams ever had a chance of becoming reality, even if he were still alive. He never noticed me, and I never assumed he would since he was the XO and I was just a lowly OC. While Shepard was assisting the Captain, I was supposed to assist the quartermaster. We were basically from different worlds, the powerful biotic hero and the nerdy tech, who couldn’t make it into engineering. Let’s face it, with my non-existing self-esteem, I didn’t even deserve to be notice by a man like John Shepard. He noticed Chief Williams though, a little too quickly I might add. Who would’ve thought that rank didn’t matter in the end? The heart wants what the heart wants. My grandmother used to say that. His heart wanted Ashley and her heart wanted him, and mine broke a little. It broke more when I heard about the Normandy being destroyed, and it shattered into pieces when Shepard was declared KIA. I was at the Academy back then, training for my commission. Destroying a reaper had some positive side effects, you see. Couldn’t be all bad now, could it?”

The interviewer looked straight at my face, when I paused and waited for a reaction. Any reaction at all. But the man was a professional - possibly a psychiatrist - and didn’t even blink. We looked at each other for a while, before he made a quick note on his pad. I wondered what he was writing, but he still didn’t speak to me. Suddenly, I became very self-conscious and wondered if I said to much and started to nervously twist the edge of my shirt, while trying not to look nervous at all. “Well”, he finally said and cleared his throat.

“Thank you for the insides, Miss Reynolds.” He smiled an odd smile and gave me a sign to sit back up again. I did quickly as I was told and sat up straight, my fingers finally letting go of my shirt and resting calmly on my knees.

“In regard of your Alliance service record and your family ties with our organisation, I am very proud to welcome you to Cerberus.” He got up from his chair and I followed suit, taking the hand he reached me for a non-committal shake, matching his artificial smile.

“Thank you, Doctor. It’s good to be here.”

The words were still ringing in my ears, when I left the office with the little box containing my new omnitool. I walked through the corridor and took the elevator downstairs to the busy lobby and through the huge glass doors. Outside, I kept walking for few metres, afraid to even think. When I realized that I had been holding my breath since I shook the psychiatrist’s hand, I finally stopped and turned around to face the building I just left. With shaking hands and a slight grin, I activated the omnitool on my left wrist and typed a short message, while watching the artificial sunlight reflecting on the windows of Alliance HQ.

_I’m in_

_\- S._

* * *

**John**

He heard something, voices maybe, though he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Why couldn’t he move? Why didn’t he feel his arms or his legs or anything? He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t do that either. He heard the voice again and tried to concentrate on that, this time he thought that it was female. Human? He tried to remember where he was. It was hard to think, had he been drugged or just hit on the head badly?

“He’s reacting to outside stimuli. Showing an awareness of his surroundings.”

The voices became clearer, this one was male, possibly human. Still, he didn’t recognize it. He tried opening his eyes again, with more luck this time and harsh neon lights burned in his eyes. A sharp stabbing pain in his forehead. Where was he?

“Oh my god, Miranda. I think he’s waking up”, said the man, as his blurry vision was slowly clearing up.

He tried to look around, maybe even to recognize something that would give him a clue to where he was. A woman came within sight, black hair, Ash? White clothes, a lab coat? Was he in a hospital? Looking around he caught the blurry image of a man’s face, definitely human, yet unknown.

“Damn it, Wilson. He’s not ready yet! Give him the sedative”, this was the woman speaking.

“ _Not ready for what_ ”, he thought. Turning his head to the left, he tried to say something. He wanted to know what was going on, needed to know where he was and who these people were. The woman grabbed his arm.

“Shepard - don’t try to move”, she said hovering over him. She was so close, and still, he couldn’t barely focus on her face. “Just lie still. Try to stay calm”, she said professionally.

“ _Calm?_ ”, Shepard thought, he would have preferred to scream it into her face. The pain was getting worse, even breathing felt wrong. Were these people doctors? Why wouldn’t they tell him where he was or why he was here?

“Heart rate still climbing”, said the man, Wilson, sounding more and more worried. “Brain activity is off the charts. Stats pushing into the red zone. It’s not working!” A machine started beeping alarmingly, he had to be in some kind of hospital. The woman - what was her name again? - left his side and Shepard tried to see where she went. He saw lab equipment, or at least he thought it was lab equipment, it was still blurry.

“Another dose. Now!”, ordered the woman. Wilson, who was standing at Shepard’s feet turned to face some sort of console immediately and seconds later the pain started to cease.

“Heart rate dropping. Stats falling back into normal range”, he said with relief and the woman entered Shepard’s field of vision again. “That was too close. We almost lost him.”

“I told you your estimates were off. Run the numbers again”, said the woman angrily before turning back to Shepard, looking down at him worriedly.

“ _Blue_ ”, he tought. “ _Not Ashley_.” He looked away. Feeling a little dizzy, Shepard’s body relaxed, his eyes were falling shut. He tried to keep them open for a while, but the neon ceiling light couldn’t hold his attention for long and so he let himself slowly drift off into the darkness.


	2. A Major Design Flaw

# Sim

I was sorting yet another shipment of weapons, meds, and armour parts, when two young crewmen entered the hangar. The women were talking about something and even the annoyed glances I shot their backs didn’t stop their chatting, nor their occasional giggles.

I hate situations like this. Not knowing what people talked about, or in this case laughed about, always made me nervous. I always felt like I was missing crucial information. Being stuck on a Cerberus ship didn’t exactly improve my crazy.

Why had I agreed to this?

Sure, my uncle kept bugging me to join, ever since my father died, he didn’t dare to come near me, whilst his brother was alive though. Being my father’s daughter, I never felt any animosities against aliens. Hell, I never cared for anything Cerberus stood for, on the contrary, I hated them for what they did to my former CO. But my uncle was very good at his job, he had been a recruiter for the Systems Alliance for almost two decades, and I bet he was doing the same job for Cerberus for quite a while, too. He knew exactly which buttons to push, on which fear to prey, when to make the kill. Sooner or later I was going to agree and join his cause, he was sure of it. And he was right. At some point, I couldn’t fight it anymore and I just gave in and joined his shitty organisation.

Well, not exactly his organisation, the Illusive Man’s organisation, or as I like to refer to him TIM.

Not to his face of course, even I am not that crazy.

And now, I was on board a Cerberus frigate, getting it ready for business. We were at it for months already, but something had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Suddenly, we were in a rush to get the ship ready, everything needed to be finished ASAP. We were ordered to double-time, all the time. Well, at least some of us were. No sign of our designated Commander and her lapdog though. Good, I didn’t care much for those two to be around anyway. Miss ‘look at me, I’m so perfect’ Lawson was an annoying little bitch, a perfect fit for Cerberus, and Mister ‘Workout Routine’ Taylor was a major pain in my ass, without even speaking more than two words with me. Something just felt off with the guy and I didn’t know what it was.

Annoyed by the constant babbling of my fellow crewmen, I went through the rest of the shipment. Funny how three days ago, all I had to do was take a look at the shipment logs to see if I was dealing with medical supplies, nutrition or ammunition. Now, I had to check every single one of the boxes for its contents, because all the logs stated was ‘Supplies: Lazarus’. Like I said, we were in a hurry and apparently, there was no time to fill out the forms properly.

The next crate contained medical supplies. Mainly medigel, painkillers and contraceptives.

_What the hell?_

What was Cerberus planning to do with this ship, that we needed a buttload of condoms?

What exactly was the purpose of ‘Lazarus’?

I shook my head and shut the crate, just to open the next one. I wouldn’t have been too surprised if it had been filled with those weird sex toys people used, but it was just thermal clips. With a sigh, I closed the ammunitions crate and went to call the elevator. Walking back and forth between the boxes and my waiting transport, I sorted the boxes into the lift. First, the crates for the armoury, everything from weapons to thermal clips. Then the medical supplies, and food rations, since the med bay and mess hall were on the same deck. And last but not least everything that was meant for engineering.

I already had one or two discussions with Lawson, about blocking the elevators like this, and that was before I started to load everything at once. I usually gathered the materials for one deck, emptied the elevator quickly and let it be on its way, until I needed it to transport another load. But after Queen Bitch told me off, I started to load everything up, block the elevator on each deck, and most of all, work really slow while I was doing my rounds. That’s what you get for telling me how to do my stupid job, and for not including staircases in your designs. And to be perfectly honest, I enjoyed the thought of Lawson calling the elevator and waiting for half an hour.

It made me a special kind of happy.

My first stop was engineering, my favourite place on the ship. Here the soft humming of the drive core was the loudest and you could feel the vibrations in every inch of the walls. The engineers Ken Donnelly and Gabby Daniels were easy to talk to, always up to date on the latest gossip, always bantering and refreshingly ‘uncerberusy’ for Cerberus personnel.

“Hey Sim, how’s it going”, Donnelly greeted me joyfully upon entering.

“Hey Ken, hi Gabby, got some spare parts for you guys.”

“Hello Sim, please tell me you got the T6-FBA couplings”, Daniels inquired hopefully. I shook my head.

“Sorry, Gabby”, I apologized. “It seems like Nashan Stellar Dynamics discontinued them, but I’ll see if I can get you some used ones. If that’s okay?”

“Anything would be fine, really”, Donnelly sounded extra nice again. “It would save us a lot of time. But Sim, did you get the ‘ _other_ ’ stuff I asked for?”

I couldn’t help but grinning. It was almost funny how he tried to be secretive about a bottle of booze and a deck of cards, considering all the surveillance that TIM had most likely installed. I stepped closer to Ken.

“Sure did, Ken”, I said in a low voice and with a wink, I added: “Make sure you don’t drink it all alone.” Gabby tried to cover up her giggling with an exaggerated cough. Her acting was over the top, as usual.

Leaving the two engineers to their work, I went back to the elevator to continue my rounds.

Again, I blocked the elevator doors and picked up one of the two crates I had marked as kitchen supplies earlier. Mess Sergeant Gardner started checking the contents as soon as I put the crate down and left to get the other ones.

“What the hell is all this, girl”, Gardner inquired upon my arrival.

“Don’t know, Rupert. The shipping receipts used to call it ‘nourishments’, but they don’t even do that anymore. These days it’s just ‘supplies’ and I have to find out what exactly they have sent.”

Gardner eyed me suspiciously.

“You sure this is food, Sim”, he didn’t sound too convinced. I shrugged, since I wasn’t sure myself.

“Guess so. Those ones look and smell like cat food - possibly taste like it too, I honestly didn’t try. Stuff in those bigger bags might be some kind of processed meat but you’re the cook, Rupert. Why don’t you just find out?”

With this I turned around and got back to my business. I could hear Gardner’s irritated murmurs in my back while I was heading for the elevator. I grabbed two of the smaller boxes and made my way back, ignoring the Mess Sergeant who was still talking to himself and heading straight to the med bay.

I was used to the medical facilities being empty and encountering another person in the room was a bit of a shocker to be honest. Yet, it couldn’t compare to the heart attack of realising who I was looking at, when said person turned around.

“Doctor Chakwas?!” I hurried to step inside the med bay and close the door behind me. “What in Cerberus’ front yard are you doing here?”

The Alliance doctor looked at me just as surprised, for a few seconds we just stared at each other. Then she shook her head softly and got back to the cabinet she was organising when I walked in.

“Chief Reynolds, right?”, she asked. I nodded my head silently, still to dumbfounded to correct her. “I guess, we both saw time to be fit for a change.”

She was as collected as I remember her but in this situation that just felt wrong to me. How could she be here and be so cool about it?

“Doctor Chakwas”, I finally spoke. “You are aware that you are currently on board a _Cerberus_ vessel, right?”

“So are you, Chief”, Chakwas said calmly. “How is me being here any different?”

“Well, first of all I wouldn’t have thought of you as a traitor.”

Yeah, I said that. That’s what I usually do when I get nervous or confused or somehow irritated: I start babbling out the first thing that comes to my mind. And the first thing I associate with Cerberus still is treason. As expected Chakwas gave me a dirty look, but instead of saying something she just turned back to her supply cabinet. I’m quite sure I heard a mumbling something under her breath though I couldn’t make out the exact words.

So, this time, instead of unpacking the boxes I had with me, I just put them on the counter to my right, turned around and left the med bay.

Still weirded out by the whole meeting the Normandy’s medical officer on a Cerberus frigate - and believe me, it still sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke - I walked back to the elevator and went up to the next deck. And here is where the Cerberus design really starts to piss me off. You see on any vessel I’ve ever been on, there was a certain logic to the ship´s design. First of all - as I mentioned earlier - stairs were a crucial part of it. You know how you’re not supposed to take the elevators in cases of let’s say fires or similar emergencies. But apparently fires were a no-no on this particular spaceship, so Cerberus refused the implementation of such archaic elements.

Secondly, this whole deck I was on - let’s just say I’d expect more of a three-headed dog. Unless those three are sharing one brain, in which case all of this does make sense.

The whole cockpit and CIC thing is designed as it was on the Normandy and as it turned out, the Turians weren’t total screwballs for sketching it like that, so I am good with that. Comm-room is also on this deck, like I’m used to and whatever they plan to do with the empty lab - I would’ve started by putting it downstairs near the med bay. You know share resources, save a buck, but apparently TIM doesn’t care for money either.

Way worse than all of this - by which I mean the worst possible design flaw ever to be designed in the history of designing space crafts and especially war machinery - is that they put the effing armoury here! The armoury! Here! Can you imagine that? A room full of weapons and ammunitions and grenades right there in the middle of the ship! One boom is all it takes!

I’m not even talking about the impracticality for landing parties, since that works out in case you have enough time and/or happen to have been in communications next door - I’ll not even start of emergency situations in which landing parties may or may not be anywhere else on the ship. I remember how Garrus and Ash used to spend most of their time down in the hangar. Like most of us did. If you weren’t working, you were most likely down there to run a few rounds or do any other exercise to keep in shape. In cases of emergency deployments, you’d grab your armour and weapon of choice and head out. Now, on this monstrosity you’d have to run upstairs to the armoury - which you can’t because no stairs - grab your gear and wait another five minutes for the elevator because some ass head blocked it. As you can now see, missing stairs is the main design flaw of this wannabe Normandy - that’s what I’m calling her, since the designs are clearly copied of the original and she doesn’t have a name yet.

* * *

# John

“You worry about the collectors, I’ll make sure my team’s ready”, Shepard told the projection of the Illusive Man. It was best to let him know, that he was working with him and not for him. The Man looked at him, dragging on his cigarette.

“Good”, he finally said. “Two things before you go: First, head to Omega and find Mordin Solus. He’s a brilliant Salarian scientist. Our intelligence suggests he may know how to counteract the Collector’s paralyzing seeker swarms.”

“Sounds good”, John nodded. “What else?”

“I’ve found a pilot I think you might like. I hear he’s one of the best. Someone you can trust.”

With that the Illusive Man ended the connection, leaving Shepard in the dark comms room. The commander was still in thought, when he heard steps behind him and didn’t turn around, assuming it might be one of the Cerberus operatives who brought him here. He was surprised to hear a familiar voice behind him.

“Hey, Commander”, said Joker. “Just like old times, huh?”


End file.
